EPL Fantasy Week 5: Slim pickings (Everton, Tottenham, and...)

Well, last week you could pick names out of a hat and have a good shot of putting together a solid squad, this week there won't be many names to draw.  The clubs to go with are Everton or Tottenham, but if you have to pick from other squads, I'd go Arsenal, Swansea, or Hull.

Keeper
Tim Howard or Hugo Llloris.  If you want to get adventurous, go with Szczesny, since Aston Villa can only score on set pieces and put backs.

Long term, Mignolet will probably not blunder for at least 3-4 matches now that he goofed on Tuesday.  Plus Liverpool do have a rather easy run upon them. Begovic is still the best keeper in the league and Stoke are still the best defence, so their upcoming fixtures seem manageable on paper.  If you're really into gambling Forster hasn't been the worst form lately and Southampton should be competitive in the next 5 matches or so.

Defenders
Everton's back four of Baines, Jagielka, Stones, and Coleman, if that's who start, are all candidates, as are Tottenham's Kaboul, Dier, Vertonghen, and Danny Rose.  Arsenal and Man U defenders should be decent as well with latter playing a Leicester side that will try to play a very 'controlled' match.  In other words a 0-0 draw will be as good as a victory for them.  Don't bet on that result though.  If I went with my gut, I'd go Chambers, Dier, Rojo, and Jagielka.

Lovren, Shawcross, Moreno, and Alderweireld would be my best bets for the next 4-5 weeks.

Midfielders
Here's where you can get a little risky and not sacrifice points like on defence.  Still Mirallas and McGeady from Everton along with Chadli, Lamela, and Eriksen from Tottenham are the most likely/safest picks.  Arsenal midfielders are a shot in the dark, only because there are so many to chose from, you don't know who'll play.  Last week I was sure Cazorla would make an impact and he never saw the pitch.  The obvious is Ramsey, but even Flamini can put in a decent match here and there. The same with Swansea, as you never know who's going to have big day, you're most likely high scorer is Sigurdsson, but Dyer, Shelvey, Sung-Yeung, and Routledge could all go off any given match.  Out of all those above, I'd go Mirallas, Chadli, Lamela, and Dyer.

In the long term, Sterling, Schniederlin, Victor Moses,  DiMaria and Tadic are the most likely to produce mucho points.

Forward
The most obvious picks here Lukaku and Adebayor, but don't fret over Naismith and Eto'o is a decent roll of the dice.  I don't know about Harry Kane though, you got some brass cajones if you pick him up.  If you want to go Arsenal, Welbeck is bound to have a decent match at some point, but if you want to play it safe there's always Alexis Sanchez.  Other players worth a shot include Jelavic and Abel Hernandez at Hull and Wilfried Bony for Swansea, who is bound to get his starting spot back after Gomis unable to take advantage of his first start.

My long term forwards are Balotelli, Pelle, Diouf, and Flacao.